


Taking Comfort

by Arwyn



Category: due South
Genre: 5 Things, Angst, But also pre-Call of the Wild, Comfort Food, Food, Food Metaphors, Gen, Introspection, Love, Post-Call of the Wild, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5318864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arwyn/pseuds/Arwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five favorite foods. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Comfort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wagnetic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wagnetic/gifts).



> Inspired by Wagnetic's question on tumblr: "Ooh while we’re at it, what are the dS characters’ favorite comfort foods?" All inspiration and thanks to her; all errors and failures mine.

Fraser has a Thing for fries. He never had them, growing up -- he knows they’re considered low class, fast food, but to him they speak of cosmopolitanism, they taste like culture and luxury, the temptations of indulgence. He’ll eat them in almost any form, even cold (he composes snatches of poetry he never writes down when he does, mocking his enjoyment of the disgustingness of the dense damp things), but his favorite is piping hot, nearly too hot to eat, crisply fried on the outside, fluffy if you dare to bite through, with just enough grease and salt to be worth licking off his fingers.

***

Everyone thinks Ray’s favorite is pizza -- and yeah, he likes a good pie, and he’ll eat it pretty much any style, any time (though extra hot, with the bite of tart sweetness the pineapple gives it, that he’ll actually sit down and enjoy). Stella thought his favorite was steak, and would treat him to the best (most expensive) steakhouses in town for special occasions -- like when she said they "needed to talk" about "where their relationships was going". Ray thought he loved steak too, for years and years, because men that went with girls like Stella loved steak, but since that night, he could barely stand the smell anymore.

No, when Ray gets lonely, and tired, and starts to feel himself spin off into the wilds of his too-fast head, he snags some leftover mashed potatoes (he’ll order chicken fried steak and potatoes at the diner with Fraser, who always asks why he gets the potatoes if he isn’t going to eat them; he’s never quite sure what he responds, mostly tries to distract him by leering at the waitress; that’s usually good for a pinched-face look and sometimes even a lecture on workplace harassment, like Ray doesn’t see _that_ every day, working with Fraser), and dig up some flour (he’s learned to keep it in the freezer to keep the weevils out), and fry up some kopytka. Okay, so _mostly_ his mom would boil them, but sometimes she’d slip a few into a hot pan and pass them off to him ("Our secret, Stanley," she’d wink), and that’s what he craves. That’s the memory that helps him through, helps him stick to one shot of vodka instead of slug after slug of Jim Beam.

***

Frannie keeps a box of Russell Stover chocolate in her panties drawer, and has since she was 14, and starting getting enough pocket money to take down to the corner store, and enough trust from Ma to make the trip without Ray always at her shoulder. In truth, she doesn’t love all of them -- the nougat ones stick to her teeth, and she’s never quite sure, as she’s chewing, if it’s really worth it -- but the ribbon-decorated box, with the gold-nestled candies waiting inside, the smell of chocolate and sweetness and the summer sun on her freshly-blow-dried hair, the crinkle of plastic as she selects the Just One for tonight... that, that she loves completely, and no one’s going to take it away from her.

***

Ray used to love everything about going out -- showing off that he’d made it, that he was doing fine, thank you Pop. He loved the heavy silverware and the ironed napkins. He loved the cream in everything, the pasta that had never been dried, the spices, the way a meal came together and made everything better, at least for a couple hours.

Since getting back from the desert, all food is dry in his mouth. He’s tasted luxury, the finest money could buy, but in memory it’s only copper and iron and sand. Even Ma’s cooking reminds him of what he missed, what he misses even now, what he can’t let himself relax into. It reminds him of Pop, of remembering that rage in order to become the one meting it out.

He hopes things start to taste better in Florida.

***

Dief loves fried-dough-things. He loves the ones white-like-snow that taste nothing-like-snow. He loves the ones filled-like-sticky-blood but sweeter, like the berries Boss Ben likes so much. He loves the ones that come wrapped in can’t-eat (not enough to keep them from _him_ , of course), and he loves-loves-loves when he finds easy-open box-of-them. He loves pa-get-ee, and meat-fried-in-things with sauce-stuff of all kinds on it. He loves pizza, even with ow-sweet things on it, and he loves fried-not-sweet-dough. He loves chocolates, even though Boss Ben yells at him if he gets some (but Dief knows it’s out of worry, so that’s okay). But mostly he loves whatever Boss Ben is eating: he loves fry-things, and dried-meat stuff, and he loves when they go out and hunt runs-fast things. Once he and Boss Ben hunted a BIG big-antler, like the not-town wolves do, and Boss Ben laughed while taking it apart and tossed him the insides-bits (he LOVES the inside-bits), and Dief came over and licked all the blood off of Boss Ben’s face, and Boss Ben threw his arms around Dief, and that was a good day.


End file.
